An archive of web initiatives on the peace and human rights in Sri Lanka

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This blog is a personal initiative of Sanjana Hattotuwa, TED Fellow Alumn, started in 2006.

Civil society and NGO websites and web based initiatives on human rights, democratic governance and peacebuilding in particular suddenly go offline or are rendered inaccessible in Sri Lanka.

One good example is the website of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which was shut down shortly after the SLMM wrapped up its work in Sri Lanka around 2006. Everything on the website was lost to local and international audiences and no intimation was given before the site was taken down. An example of a site being blocked from Sri Lanka is Tamilnet. Finally, there is the example of TAFREN on which there is simply no information to be found anymore on the web save for a few archives.

A litany of issues is to blame and range from an incumbent regime viciously intolerant of critical perspectives on war and peace to a disturbing lack of awareness of, emphasis on and interest in safe guarding information and knowledge by NGOs and other content producers. There is also a significant lack of any sort of business continuity planning amongst NGO and civil society actors in Sri Lanka, who should really know better. Most never learn, even when disaster strikes once.

This blog is a simple effort to archive some of this vital content and preserve it for scholars of peace and conflict in Sri Lanka.

It is inspired by the Waybackmachine, which sadly does not archive Sri Lankan civil society content with any useful degree of comprehensiveness or frequency.

This blog cannot and will not archive ALL civil society and NGO websites or web initiatives in Sri Lanka. It is limited to websites and web based initiatives that are at a high risk of sudden closure or being rendered inaccessible judged on news reports published in the media and information I receive from other sources. See Disclaimer for more information.

In addition to civil society sites, this blog will also archive vital Government and political party websites. These websites usually are unreliable to use, very slow to load and sometimes go offline with no warning. At the time of writing, the TNA, SCOPP and Department of Census and Statistics websites are two examples in this regard.